


Light it up

by withered



Series: Who's been lovin' you good? [48]
Category: Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: Bucky trying to be good at emotions, Dopamine dealer Tony, Fluff, M/M, Not Team Captain America Friendly, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Touch-Starved, bucky is soft, casual affection, hand holding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-22
Updated: 2019-10-22
Packaged: 2020-12-28 11:03:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21135668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/withered/pseuds/withered
Summary: Tony gives Bucky emotions. It's uncomfortable until it isn't.





	Light it up

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to anon for [prompting me!](https://everything-withered.tumblr.com/post/188516540971/title-games-fire-in-my-soul-for-winteriron-or)

He’s known the cold all his life. The last thing he remembers before Hydra, the operating table and the Chair is the way the sky looked like it had been made of glass, and the world around him had been bathed in snow, clean and white, and empty. 

Just as he had become: A blank slate with a puppet for a body and a mind that screams with the howling of a bracing wind he doesn’t feel. Not anymore. 

He’s almost grateful for the fight; the surge of adrenaline, the rush. 

His handlers note that when he’s awake, he gets antsy without it, nervous; an addict without his addiction. Sometimes they indulge him with it, other times, they try to beat it out of him. And even then, he embraces it - the chill is gone when he’s moving; when he’s spilling blood or having it spilled. It’s probably sick to want it, but he’ll take what he can get.

It’s the most alive he ever feels. 

Until Tony. 

Until Tony, someone he’s almost killed and who’s almost killed him in turn, is made to sit next to him at a press conference after the Rogues' official signing of the Accords. With pardon in hand, a roof over his head and the protection of who the world collectively heralds as _the Avenger_, sitting still and playing his part is the least he - Bucky, _no _, the Soldier, _no_\- can do. 

Except he can't. 

While he's trained and sparred with the Dora when he was still in Wakanda, that had been a few days ago at least.

(Sixty-three hours, forty-seven minutes, eighteen-nineteen-twenty-_tick-tick-tick _seconds.)

It had tided him over for the transfer to the States, but his fortitude had been chipped away to essentially nothing thanks to Barton's general unpleasantness. He's only grateful that the Witch had a different deal hammered out and that he hadn't been exposed to her any more than necessary. Or at all, since they'd all left Wakanda. Barton's thrown his toys out of the cot over that too, something about _Stark taking things personally again, _but the archer didn't elaborate. Not that he would've stayed to listen. 

Point is, he's twitchy and uncomfortable and practically crawling out of his skin.

The cameras don't help. All the people. His fist curls and uncurls. His knee bounces. 

He doesn't know why he's here. 

The photo op, probably. 

Ever since the world at large found out about why he and Tony had it out in that bunker, concerns were raised. And while Tony had smirked, red lenses reflecting the wall of media white flashes, and drawled, "Water under the bridge", even now, he's hesitant to believe it.

God, he hopes no one expects him to talk.

While he has no issues doing it despite Rogers' insistence on speaking for him; he's been told the slight Russian slant to his words does not endear him to the Americans. 

Regardless, he'd already painstakingly written his apology to Tony before he'd even gone under in Wakanda, a month after the bunker. The letter was three pages back to back. Without the drugs Hydra used, his memories had started to return and with it important information about Hydra bases, known associates and their active accounts. 

He resolutely doesn't think about the other memories that have started to resurface.

Still, Tony had accepted, and even video-called him to ask if _he was okay_. 

It had been surreal enough that their backgrounds looked the same: a sterile, hospital type room in the same white outfit despite being in two completely different countries and in two completely different mindsets: Tony, going for a third operation for the arc reactor in his chest, and him, getting ready to be put to sleep.

That Tony was concerned for him after everything that had happened was completely out of left-field. He'd never felt more wrong-footed in his life, and that was saying something. 

And just before the Princess was due to put him into cryo, Tony threw him for a loop again when he promised to bang out the wishlist he'd been given once he received his medical clearance: 

"That's not...that's not why I sent it to you," he'd struggled to explain. The last thing he wanted was for Tony to think he'd given him all that intel with the hope of getting his forgiveness, but Tony waved it off. "You wanted to give me something for nothing, and that's even more reason to do it. Besides, I already told you, much as it pains me to agree with Rogers but: You didn't kill my parents. Hydra did. And once I'm out of here, I'll be paying them a visit." 

His lips quirked despite his hesitance. "Hey, leave some for the rest of us." 

Tony chuckled, patted the railing of his hospital bed as if the engineer would've patted him on the arm instead if they'd been in the same room, and said, "I'll see you on the other side, Barnes." 

It had been strange to think of how he felt at that, how the whole conversation made him feel: lighter and relieved and _warm. _

All the poetic justice in the world couldn't compare to the fact that he'd have to be frozen again right after, but he thought of that fleeting warmth in the same way he thought of Tony's tired eyes, the golden-brown of it like a sunset set to sink into the horizon, his smile. It had soothed the anxious wriggling in his chest, brought him a calm that only came with a good fight, though different in the way that it felt less like a punch to the gut and more a gentle reminder of his present: that for everything bad that's happened, he's here, no one will hurt him, and he won't hurt anyone else, and _Tony forgives him _and that's -

He jostles the table and winces more at the noise than the fact that his knee has started to sting, though it hardly registers to the room at large.

Only Tony glances at him from the corner of his eye, considering through the red lenses of his glasses before his attention shifts, and he's answering a question. He volleys comments back and forth with the media, a leer there, a grin here; he even lowers his glasses at one stage to look at someone incredulously. The room reacts in kind, chuckling and murmuring before prodding, again and again, sometimes pointed and demanding, sometimes curious; Tony responds in kind with casual, friendly regard, and it's fascinating in its effortlessness. 

The room is still fraught with tension, but it's lighter with Tony's efforts, and eventually, they leave Tony alone, the attention switching to someone else.

He doesn't see who; doesn't care because he hadn't realized he'd stopped moving until he's starting again; hands curling into fists, knee jigging nervously. It's only on the third pass of hitting the table and hiding his grimace that he feels the warm weight of Tony's hand resting on his knee. 

Tony's not looking at him, but he thinks he sees the man's lip lift a little in amusement, but he can't be sure. 

His cheeks flush anyway, the nerves turning from his limbs to tease at his lungs, he's starting to breathe a little funny.

Strangely attuned, Tony squeezes his knee comfortingly, and he thinks his heart leaps into his throat. It's not panic, he thinks, and he grasps at ways to calm down, the voice of his therapist coming like some holy epiphany from on high as she prompts him to _name his emotions: _Okay. Okay. _Surprised, I feel- I feel surprised._ That makes sense, he mentally congratulates. _I feel...relieved. Yes. Because. Because Tony's here. Tony knows how to do this. Tony's good at this. _Explains the endorphins, he continues to mentally approve. _Tony's here and he's got me and it's going to be okay._

He doesn't bounce his knee again, but when Tony removes his hand, it takes only a minute and a half before he's at it again.

Tony's hand goes back on his knee, and now his grin is more obvious.

He feels like an idiot for looking down at his chest, but it really does feel like his heart is trying to make a valiant escape. As if trying to help his traitorous heart's endeavor, Tony teases in something just below a whisper, "I'm starting to think you're doing that on purpose."

_I'm starting to think so too, _he doesn't say, even though he really is starting to panic now because _what is happening, what is - oh. Oh. I like it. That's why I -_

Someone else is speaking now; Rogers, apparently, and Tony's hand withdraws in a flinch he doesn't understand but doesn't have time to examine because he feels his stomach sink in..._O__h, I'm disappointed? That's -_ and decides quickly, _I don't like that - _And he's reaching for Tony's hand this time, resting it on his knee and breathing through the initial surge of..._oh, oh I feel...good...I feel...happy? _He looks at Tony as if he can explain why to find him already looking back. 

Tony looks a little surprised, and there's a rosy flush on his cheeks; his mouth is agape, pink lips parted and honeyed eyes peering at him - and he feels _oh...oh, well...I...know what that is. _

He wants to withdraw his hand then out of embarrassment - he can feel another part of his anatomy trying to betray him - but Tony seems to snap out of his momentary daze and smile, less like a tease and more like a real smile, softer and sweeter and - it's like lying out in the sun on a balmy afternoon, something warm unfurling in his chest, blooming. _Oh. _

"Thank you," he whispers.

Amused and fond, Tony whispers back, "For what?" 

At a loss for words to explain what exactly is happening to him - _what is his heart even doing? _\- he replies with a slight lift of their joined hands from his knee, "You're singlehandedly producing all my dopamine." 

Tony's so surprised he bursts out laughing, and _wow, that's - that's even better; _like he's got the sun's favor and its thawing the cold from his bones from the inside out. He whispers urgently in reply, eyes wide, "You're doing it again." 

Somehow that makes Tony laugh more. Tony has a dimple, his eyes crinkle at the corners; they're doe-dark and pretty, and he'd much rather stare at them than at the cameras, even as he notices the flashes, the incessant clicking.

It's easy to ignore in the wake of Tony's happiness, easy to bask in the warmth of it knowing he had a hand in it. 

He's never felt more alive for it.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is wonderfully pointless.
> 
> [Slide into my asks](https://everything-withered.tumblr.com)


End file.
